OZARK, Mo.—Operating 350 IP-based video surveillance cameras at one of the largest churches in the country originally began as a way to protect the church against accusations of sexual misconduct, but has evolved into a way to better protect parishioners and improve operational efficiency.

“If you look historically at churches, clergy sexual misconduct against churches, particularly in counseling situations” has been a big issue, said Kert Parsley, chief operating officer at the James River Assembly Church. “If someone is doing counseling and cameras are there they can’t make a claim against us and it keeps them honest and keeps counselors honest.” 

While James River Assembly hasn’t had any claims of misconduct, the financial consequences are too high of a risk to remain unprotected against, he said. To continue to improve its coverage, the church has expanded its camera system from its counseling rooms to classrooms and other areas where children are present.

While the system is primarily a liability-abatement tool, the church has begun incorporating it as more of a security asset, looking at halls and cash registers and other areas that are vulnerable to theft. “We have a unique situation because there are a lot of different businesses wrapped into the church because it’s such a large entity,” said Matt Lackrone, president of NetWatch, the security integrator on the project.

The James River Assembly serves approximately 15,000 parishioners with services of more than 9,000 people every Sunday.

The church began overhauling the system about seven years ago, migrating from an antiquated VCR, analog system to an IP-based Axis network cameras. The previous system was impractical to use and staff would often spend hours or more searching for relevant footage, said Todd Nicholson, information technology director at the church. The church upgraded its infrastructure to fiber optics, which allowed it to add better security equipment, but also allowed the church to add a VoIP telephone system as well.

During the transition to the new system, Nicholson said it was critical for the church to utilize its existing equipment. He said they had to add about 100 new IP-cameras while just adding encoders to its existing analog cameras.

Upgrading the system also saved the church personnel costs. “We had talked about placing it in the budget to hire a director of security, but with the economy we couldn’t go that route,” said Parsley. “The camera system allowed us not to have to hire someone full time and allowed us to take advantage of our security team and volunteers and the technology actually saved us some money.” 

The cameras have also allowed the church to improve its situational awareness during services. “We have a security team in place during all services and they are able to respond to events and the cameras are able to assist them,” said Todd. For every service, the church has between 10 and 12 dedicated security personnel. During one recent Sunday service, a parishioner was identified possessing an unknown object on their person. “They contacted us and within less than five minutes we identified the person and were able to find that individual,” said Nicholson. 

While the church now has the capabilities to integrate other existing systems such as its access control system, Parsley said fully integrating the systems is not a top priority. “From a director’s perspective, fully integrating has advantages and disadvantages. Full integration adds another layer of complication,” he said. “Whenever something makes it easier to manage and makes things more efficient we want to take advantage of that, but if fully integrated we may be waiting for a secondary company to upgrade their product before we can take advantage of another company’s upgrade.”

Nicholson said some of the new technology the church is considering includes video analytics and a more comprehensive mapping system. Adding software capable of counting people entering the church can help the leadership determine attendance trends and help the church plan for everything from having enough parking spots to the number of seats and volunteers on hand to accommodate the crowds. 

However, Parsley said he sees some issues with video analytics miscounting attendance especially because the church has greeters at entrance points who could be counted multiple times. However, he sees the real asset being more on the operational side, providing information about where the majority of people are entering and exiting the church during the week, which could help them determine appropriate signage.

A significant reason the church was able to get where it is today is because of a constant evaluation of the current equipment and as well as maintaining ongoing relationships with vendors and integrators, said Nicholson. “You don’t have to do a complete overhaul if you continually evaluate the individual pieces and are constantly ready for the next thing,” he said.

Although the church has spent a significant amount of money improving its infrastructure and system, Parsley says that other churches should not be discouraged by the size and scope of its system and they can achieve a similar system. “It can be phased in and start small and expand it and they don’t have to be where we are today. We certainly weren’t here,” he said.